The growth of the use of robots in manufacturing, as well as flexible manufacturing has necessitated the need to move robots to different stations along an assembly line. The required robotic movement has necessitated the mounting of robots on mobile platforms, where the platforms must be positioned into a known location at a repeatable high accuracy in the order of less than 1 mm. Examples applications of robots mounted to mobile platforms include the maneuvering of a robotic assembly arm to a location where the robotic arm can execute assembly tasks, or the maneuver of a robotic surgery system to the right place to conduct surgery on a patient.
In general, in order to achieve a high level of accuracy and precision when moving a mobile platform two technologies will have to operate in concert, a location tracking system, to measure at high accuracy where the vehicle is, and at what orientation, and a vehicle platform control system that can move the vehicle at high precision in the desired position. While vehicle control systems with high accuracy are readily available, these control systems are typically slow in order to maintain precision control. Furthermore, prior art systems that attain a higher speed and maintain accuracy tend to be overly complex for most applications. Thus, there has conventionally been a tradeoff between the complexity of a control system and the level of accuracy attained by a control system. This trade-off between the complexity and level of accuracy typically also applies to the tracking systems.
Thus, there exists a need for a mobile platform that can be repositioned at a high level of precision and accuracy that is also cost effective.